Tag: Beige

Desert Play Mat

My best attempt at a desert mat for play time.

Little humans slowly grow up, and one I know had a birthday in January. As usual, I wanted to make a thing. I’d decided on a play mat of some sort, preferably with a road grid on it, so that cars could race along. After weeks of scouring the fabric shops online for a fabric that had good, wide roads on it, I decided that it was impossible. So I went back to one of the fabric shops I’ve frequented the last few months that sells coupons (shorter lengths of pre-cut fabrics that are generally leftovers) because I’d been in love with a cactus printed linen for the longest time. There were some other fabrics that really tickled my fancy. A geometric pattern on some ochre cotton, smaller cacti on ochre, dinosaurs with umbrellas etc. (I may have developed an ochre obsession at one point).

The playmat was going to have both of the cactus prints, one for the ‘front’ and one for the ‘back’. There was also some dark blue cotton that I bought for the drawstring casing. You see, I found this Toy Bag & Play Mat tutorial by Fabric Mill, which I decided to almost entirely disregard, but I liked the standing edge on the drawstring casing a lot. I did want a contrasting one so that it was clear where the edge was.

Once the fabrics arrived in my house and were laundered, I set out to make a play mat/bag. I cut out the largest circle possible from both of the fabrics. Then layered them with some quilt batting and sewed lines every 10 cm in a grid pattern to keep the fabrics together. This was quite the ordeal but I did manage to make the entire thing in a day, so I guess it wasn’t too awful. After that, it was trimmed to size, the edge sewn and zigzagged down. Then the casing was added, this was the most annoying part of the entire project. I cut it 7.5 cm wide as per the instructions, which was not wide enough for my version because my seam allowance was larger. So I ended up cutting more strips and attaching them, having to unpick at least 8 sections because I sewed over folds in the first strip. Very frustrating. Once it was finally all attached correctly, it was sewed down and then the edge was closed. I didn’t have a cord, but the last bit of the project: ‘adding a cord and sewing a closure’ was only a few minute job so I’m counting it as a one day project.

Cycling Skirt

Making a turn of the century bicycle skirt for the non-car owning people among us.

During the pattern buying spree of 2020 (that rhymes!), I also got Black Snail Patterns #0714 Bicycle Skirt about 1900. At some point when the corona lockdown wasn’t as bad as it was now, I’d purchased 5-6 meters of a sand coloured (no, it’s beige but I hate that word) fabric. I think it might be a sort of twill, but I’m not certain at all. I’d also found some sand and white checked fabric that I thought would work well for a blouse to go with the thicker twill stuff. While the paper pattern has been cut out for a while now, getting started on it proved to be a little more difficult.

  • Back
  • Side
  • Pocket
  • Front

Eventually, however, I managed to get going and once I did, the thing was done in three days. I chose to make the third size but once I’d cut it out and was measuring everything, I got scared and wanted to have some more space in the waist. So I moved all the markings on the side – front seams over by a centimeter. The seam allowance was 2 centimeters so that wasn’t too big of an issue. I think that this was probably a good call as I can now wear the skirt without foundation garments too. I also took 8 cm out of the hem and disregarded their instructions for the spacing of the hem-stitching. Most of it was sewn on the treadle, with certain bits being hand-sewn on.

  • Buttonholes and decoration
  • Button stitching
  • Back decorations and bar tack

The appliques where sewn on using a thicker thread, the same that was used for the hand-worked buttonholes. I’m very proud of these. It was the first time making a keyhole opening for the buttons and using a technique that actually seemed to work. I also used it to secure the buttons in an aesthetically pleasing manner. The buttons on the left are functional for putting the skirt on and the ones on the right are just decorative. There is one pocket in the skirt and this sits on the right side. Once I’d finished it and put my phone in the pocket, the entire skirt pulled out of alignment and I decided that I needed to add a pocket-holding strap. That’s since solved those issues entirely.

  • Pockets and insides
  • Hem stitching

I’m fairly certain that this thing is based of a Cycling Ensemble in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, from around 1900. Otherwise it’s an incredible coincidence… The details seem to fit even if the actual seamlines might differ a little. The Met version also has a friend which is so similar that I actually had to look very carefully to spot any differences. The only real obvious changes I can find is that the second one has more buttons? I have made my very first bicycle test drive with this skirt and it seemed to work very nicely. I hope to get some wear out of it and finish a nice blouse to match.

Twinsies!

Those Slippers

So, ever bought a knitting book, found a fabulous pair of knitted house slippers in them and proceeded to knit them up and make them hideous in the process? I have. See the wonderful example below for the gorgeousness I managed to ruin completely. The book is called ‘Breien’ written by Jaroslava Dovcova, and I bought it for approx. 4 euros at the Action.

July 2014 slippers      July 2014 slippers 2

The reason they are now hideous is because I chose the worst shade of old people beige to knit them with. After I’d finished the first, I decided that the  as done in the example was much nicer, so I decided to purchase some fluorescent green. The plan was to frog the first one and knit it again, but I’ve decided I’m lazy.

I’m so lazy that I haven’t actually weaved in the ends and have still worn them plenty of times. There are some redeeming qualities of this project though; 1. they are warm, 2. they are easy to knit (it’s a one-nighter) and 3. they match my new second-hand grandma chair perfectly!

Here is the finished product. You can see the threads still dangling inside them. I will wear them until they fall apart because I failed to finish them properly. I might then finish them properly, who knows..

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